Report: Chip Kelly Wanted to Draft Jordan Matthews in First Round

A report that Eagles head coach Chip Kelly might want to opt out of this contract led to a lot of media speculation, so naturally the Eagles responded by promoting Kelly and Howie Roseman on Friday.

Let's take a close look at this whole front office reshuffling.

After Tom Gamble was fired on Wednesday, people didn't know what was going to happen with Kelly or Roseman - now we do, both guys have new titles, but what does this all mean now for the Eagles?

In reality, we now know that Chip Kelly has control and final say in all of the Eagles personnel decisions and now Roseman is handling all the contract negotiations.

But for Eagles fans, the critical part of the story is Kelly being the main man now when it comes to making roster, free agent and draft decisions, which isn't new according to Kelly.

"Yeah, I'm in charge of the roster in terms of who our 53 are so I have to weigh in on that," Kelly said in his final press conference of the season. "But I also know there are other factors, salary cap, money, and the numbers and all those other things. But I have to tell them who I want and who I don't want."

The one major difference is that presumably Kelly will no longer have to listen to any input from Roseman and will no longer have input from Gamble on any of these roster, draft and free agent decisions.

Why is this so critical?

According to NFL insider Jason Cole of Bleacher Report, Kelly and Roseman were at odds over the Eagles draft strategy. Per Cole, Kelly wanted to draft Jordan Matthews in the first round of the most recent draft, but it was Roseman who had to explain to Kelly that the Eagles could get Matthews in the second round.

They ended up getting Matthews with pick No. 42 in the second round.

Also per Cole, this same instance happened in a number of other circumstances, according to other sources that he has talked to that understand the Eagles situation.

One situation we are aware of is the well publicized decision where Kelly admitted he wanted to draft Oregon defensive end Taylor Hart - in the third round. Roseman had to talk Kelly out of taking him in the third round, eventually landing him in the fifth round of the draft.

A big question here is, will the guy that Chip brings in basically be a lap dog and allow Chip to make any decisions he wants, or will they stand up to him when he is making a clear mistake - like taking Hart in the third round, or maybe at all for that matter, he was a healthy scratch all 16 games this season.

So what does all this mean?

Well for starters, it looks like Roseman is out of making personnel decisions and Kelly will now have to formulate his own draft decisions, figure out how to handle a draft board and bring in another guy to help make personnel decisions.

Kelly ends up with more power from the Eagles, which means as our Eagles insider Scott Grayson put it today on the Sports Bash, at least now we can hold him accountable if he is the guy making mistakes - before there always seemed to be a grey area of who was in charge of making picks.

Kelly doesn't have a lot of experience at all in personnel and I would think this now puts a lot more pressure on Kelly now from fans who were starting to wonder if in fact his system can work in the NFL. Now, if he is also picking the players and they don't perform, he is leaving himself open to another avenue of criticism.

And if that starts to happen as soon as next offseason, will Kelly begin to look back to the college game where he can walk into any living room and give his pitch to any kid in America. Where you can recruit four different quarterbacks and may the best man win the job. No salary cap, no GM and front office, just recruit the guys you want and show up with 98 guys on your roster.

So Eagles fans are you comfortable with Chip Kelly having all the power in the Eagles organization?